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While an ad hoc charges committee of UCSB’s Academic Senate looks into accusations of faculty misconduct against William Robinson - the professor who sent out an e-mail in January comparing the Israeli occupation of Gaza with the Nazi’s handling of the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II - the Committee to Defend Academic Freedom at UCSB has been working overtime trying to prove that Robinson was within his right to send the email. The committee, which was formed shortly after complaints were filed by two students in January, recently enlisted the help of the Pennsylvania-based Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), an organization similar to the American Civil Liberties Union but more narrowly focused. FIRE Individual Rights Defense Program director Adam Kissel said that his organization was aware of the issue but also that Robinson initiated contact.

In a June 10 letter addressed to UCSB Chancellor Henry Yang, Kissel wrote that faculty members have complained of a “chilling effect,” and that continuation of the Academic Senate investigation constitutes further violation against Robinson’s right to send out material such as the e-mail - which placed images of Nazi and of Israeli soldiers side-by-side for comparison - to students. The letter gives Yang until June 24 to respond, after which FIRE has threatened to launch a media campaign in retaliation. “We’re entirely non-partisan,” said Kissel of his organization. “It doesn’t matter to us what view it is that is being investigated or punished. What matters is whether a view is being investigated or punished.”

One of the two students in Robinson’s class who filed complaint said that she had sent an e-mail asking whether or not it was an assignment, to which she said he replied, “For your interest.” Both students then proceeded send formal complaints to the university administration, and letters to the Anti Defamation League (ADL) and Stand With Us (SWU) - two anti-Semitism watchdog groups. “Just because it wasn’t assigned doesn’t mean it wasn’t relevant [to the class],” said Kissel, asserting that his organization is certain that the email was in fact relevant to course material. “You don’t need an academic senate investigation at all to see that it’s protected under the canons of academic freedom.”

From the beginning of Robinson’s ordeal, the Committee to Defend Academic Freedom has been staunch in its defense of the professor, maintaining that he was well within his right to send the controversial e-mail. The group has also said that ADL and SWU are applying pressure on UCSB’s faculty and administrators to silence critics of Israel, an accusation that ADL president Abraham Foxman emphatically denied. “The question is, should a professor spam his class with any old material without invitation for discussion or debate while jamming his own political views down [his students’] throats?” said Roz Rothstein, SWU’s Executive Director, who called the e-mail a one-sided polemic. “If he brought this up in class as regular course material it would be more correct, because debate could be raised in class.

Kissel said that typically, when FIRE launches a media campaign, they send press releases to media outlets where the school is located and focus on publications that will get the attention of the higher education community. “We tend to win our cases without resorting to legal action. We don’t even litigate. We have a number of attorneys on staff to make sure that we don’t make a mistake on the law,” he said, adding that they are often attacked by liberals for defending conservative professors and vice versa.

Currently, the ad hoc committee - the membership of which has been kept under wraps by the Academic Senate - is still conducting the investigation. Paul Desruisseaux, UCSB’s public affairs officer, said that he doesn’t know when they will announce further action, although he surmised that some sort of conclusion will be reached in the near future.

Comments

I see that Rothstein is still pushing the idea that because the email was sent through the course distribution list it was inappropriate. She seems to think this is the crux of the matter - or at least this is what she wants the public to believe.

Could it be that Rothstein really doesn't understand what a course distribution list is? Is it possible that she doesn't know that the purpose of the course distribution is to distribute materials to students for discussion?

Frankly, I don't believe Rothstein is that ignorant. It's more likely that Rothstein knows what a course distribution list is, but is feigning ignorance to sustain a convenient misperception about the actual purpose of the material in question.

Rothstein knows that the larger population is unfamiliar with course distribution lists, that they think of it as something like a class roster (that's how Rothstein describes it) which Robinson exploits to spread his political views.

So permit me to clear up this misperception. A course distribution list is a electronic database that a university sets up for a course, the purpose of which is to distribute educational materials, for example, media stories for discussion. Students are automatically signed up to the course distribution list. It is part of the course.

The course distribution list is a feature of our modern multimedia classroom experience and is standard on most university campuses. The course distribution list connects the professor to the students and the students to the professor, as well as every student in the class to every other student in the class. Anybody who wants to discuss or debate materials distributed through the course distribution list is free to do so.

The course distribution list allows for more expansive discussion than was possible before its invention, since students can now discuss the topic 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Moreover, students who are shy about speaking up in class - say on controversial political issues - find it much easier to speak up on the course distribution list. Some teachers even require students as part of their discussion grade to submit e-mails through the list.

Let's use an example. Suppose a professor is teaching a sociology class on global issues. Let's call the class "The Sociology of Globalization." Let's imagine that the class is offered in the spring of 2009 and that in the early months of that year a major global event unfolds that may, using historical comparison, reveal underlying social dynamics of colonial projects. This is precisely the sort of event that a sociology course of this character is designed to analyze. The course distribution list allows the professor to send material designed to provoke discussions and debate about this unfolding event.

All Robinson did was use the course distribution list to distribute relevant news items about current global events to his students in a sociology course on global issues.

A mathematics Professor does not have the academic freedom to teach that 2+2 = 5. We place enormous emphasis on teaching about the Shoah -- California mandates the subject in the high school curriculum. If we cannot see that equating the Warsaw ghetto to Gaza is saying 2+2 = 5, then we should give up teaching about the Shoah.

I think Professor William Robinson is being targeted by the right wing extremists. I admire UCSB Professors who desires to communicate with their students outside of classrooms via e-mail or in person. I also think every student, staff and faculty is entitled to his or her opinion.

2+2=5 is an invalid analogy. Demonstrating the falsehood of 2+2=5 does not depend upon any empirical data. The fact of 2+2=4 is a purely logical one, true by definition.

The facts of the Warsaw and Gaza ghettos are, in contrast, the subject to empirical study. Interpretations drawn from comparisons of these facts are, like any interpretation in science, subject to debate. If you disagree with Robinson's interpretation, debate him. Don't censor or punish him.

Here's a valid analogy: Interpretations about the social dynamics underpinning racial segregation in the United States and the racial segregation in South Africa are subject to debate. What we don't do - if we wish to live in a free and open society - is censor or punish professors who compare Jim Crow to Apartheid.

It is ideological to claim that comparing Jim Crow to Apartheid is always false. It is likewise ideological to claim that comparing Israel's treatment of Palestinians to the National Party's treatment of blacks in South Africa is always false. In scientific practice, we do our best to eschew such dogmatic thinking. Science can only be possible if scientists are allowed to interpret the empirical evidence before them. Comparative methodology is an important part of this process.

I noticed a reader compares what Professor Robinson did to a math teacher who teaches that 2+2 = 5. That is typical of the absurd arguments being used in the attack on Professor Robinson, well perhaps even more absurd than most attacks. In teaching a course on global issues, it is appropriate to raise a variety of controversial issues on which people disagree. Nothing in the Middle East is as simple as 2+2 = 4.

It is shocking that two college students with the grades and intelligence to be accepted at UCSB, cannot process material like this in an intellectually mature way. Nobody forced them to believe it. Should every Muslim student have the equal right to institute an official censure of a professor that presented material that supported Israel's point of view? I doubt they have a lobby that would have gotten to first base with the UCSB administration.

It is time for pro-Zionists supporters to stop crying wolf everytime Israel is criticized. Israel is just a country and is not above criticism.

So if the Shoah is comparable to Gaza, why make such a big deal about the former? Maybe the Shoah is not a unique event, and is instead truly equivalent to the Israeli occupation, or even the deportation of illegal immigrants from the U.S. as some activists claim. If the Shoah has no uniqueness, why have a Holocaust museum, or a Museum of Tolerance, or a state educational mandate? If this is your position, fine but say so openly. Of course if the Shoah loses its horror, then comparisons of the Left's pet causes to it no longer have an impact.

The question is not whether Israeli treatment of Palestinians in Gaza equates exactly to Judeocide. Nobody seriously claims that the context of the Zionist treatment of the Palestinian people is exactly the same as the context of the Nazi response to the Jewish uprising in the Warsaw ghetto. You are making strawman arguments. Nobody who compares Israeli treatment of Palestinians to the treatment of black Africans by the National Party under Apartheid claims these two cases are exactly the same. Nobody who compares the European genocide of the American Indian claims the context is exactly the same as that of the Great Calamity suffered by the Armenian people 1915-1917.

Accepting the perverse logic of your argument, black South Africans should decry any comparison between Apartheid and other systems of racial separation, since such a comparison denies the unique and incomparable suffering of black South Africans. From your point of view, Apartheid can exist only in its unique geographically-bounded historical moment (South Africa 1948-1994). The same would be said of the Holodomor, right? Any attempt to suggest that a state starving people in any other historical moment bears any resemblance to Soviet behavior 1932-1933 would be denying the Ukrainian people the uniqueness of their suffering, no?

No historical event is sacred from a scientific perspective. For a scientist, Apartheid is a historical manifestation of a category of social behavior that we find in many places and in many times, behavior which the international community now recognizes as immoral and criminal (at least ideally). For the scientist - and for anybody who possesses a universal moral sense rather than a tribal one - acts of violence fall in various categories that guide the comparison of historical cases. There is nothing transcendent about any historical case that exempts it from historical comparison.

Historical comparison is a tool to study economic, political, and social dynamics. It's what social scientists do. All scientists, social and natural, compare events across time to study causal processes. The problem Robinson poses is whether the experience of Jews and the behavior of the Nazis around and in the Warsaw ghetto - the walls, razor-wire fences, watchtowers, checkpoints, routine harassment, periodic military aggressions, massive civilians casualties, targeted assassinations, grooming of collaborators, justificatory rhetoric, and so forth - present any similarities with the experience of Palestinians and the behavior of Zionists in the Gaza ghetto. Based on the evidence, does the comparison help the public understand the way colonial projects operate? Can the one help explain the other? If the destruction of a group of people were in process, could we know it by studying the destruction of other groups of people in history? Could we use that knowledge to build a moment to stop it?

ibsaltzman writes "Should every Muslim student have the equal right to institute an official censure of a professor that presented material that supported Israel's point of view? I doubt they have a lobby that would have gotten to first base with the UCSB administration. It is time for pro-Zionists supporters to stop crying wolf everytime Israel is criticized. Israel is just a country and is not above criticism."

Disgraceful to see you whining that Jews get preferential treatment - you sound like one of those people who rant about Jews controlling the media or blame them for the attack on 9/11 - over time, I have seen enough of your offensive comments on this website to know that you harbor a deep and abiding hatred of Israel - not anti-semitism, mind you - and that you lack any ability to look objectively at events in the region, whether it be Hamas launching rockets into Israeli towns and farms in an attempt to kill innocent civilians - ever think that might have something to do with the attack on Gaza? - or even acknowledging the simple fact that, rather than conducting some colonial enterpise, Israel moved into the Sinai, the Golan Heights, Gaza, etc etc only when it was attacked in 1967 by the combined armies of all its arab neighbors and that it has been willing to return "occupied" lands to any of those warring countries willing to negotiate an end to hostilities and recognize Israel's right to exist, as they did in returning the Sinai to Egypt.

Pathetic too to see you blaming the students who complained about Robinson's fatuous screed, attacking their intelligence and lack of ability to "process" his attempt push his personal political views on them.

We are way beyond establishing the reality of a double standard regarding criticism of Israel. This case is just one of many that establish that reality. One can openly condemn any other country in world for taking brutal action against virtually defenseless populations without it becoming national news. If in a college classroom today some professor condemned the fascist-like tactics of the Iranian police we will not find them in trouble tomorrow. Calling Ahmadinejad a "Nazi" is commonplace on university campuses, whether deserved or not. Comparing US policy to fascism hardly raises eyebrows in college classrooms.

As for the students who dropped the class, they might have challenged and debated Robinson. If they were fearful of classroom confrontation, they could have used the course distribution list. After all, that is why he distributed the items and commentary to the class in the first place--to provoke discussion. Sadly, something in their cognitive framework told them that censorship and punishment were proper responses to criticisms of Israel, not debate and enlightenment. This is sad because this is the manner in which authoritarians respond to speech with which they disagree, not the behavior of enlightened citizens in a democracy.

However, we may miss the crux of the problem if we only focus on the students. Their complaints should have been met with this simple clarification: "Academic freedom allows for historical comparison in the service of criticisms of state behavior." It's those who pressured the university into an investigation, those university officials who allowed this thing to move forward, and those university officials who are now failing to stop it, who are more centrally at fault.

All Robinson did was use a historical comparison in order to form a criticism of state behavior. There is nothing more basic to historical sociology than the use of case comparison to clarify social structure and dynamics. There can be no historical cases that are disallowed in making comparisons. Nothing is sacred in historical analysis--at least according to the norms of a free and democratic society.

The motive behind the attack on Robinson and academic freedom is transparent. The danger is obvious and extremely serious. All who love freedom should hope the effort fails spectacularly.

Dream on - the record seems clear Robinson did not EVER use his e-mail as the basis for an informed discussion or debate in the classroom with his students. (He has changed his story several times about what he intended in sending it to them). At the end of the day, the e-mail was little more than an effort to spew his own hateful rant about Israeli actions in Gaza upon a captive audience rather than availing himself of the many other more appropriate fora on campus and off in which he could have done so without anyone raising an eyebrow.

You are mischaracterizing the facts. It was a discussion item, not a graded assignment. It is Robinson's practice to provide informational pieces concerning current events to illustrate concepts presented in class and to stimulate discussion. He one of those teachers who believes it is important to make his subject relevant to students' lives by connecting sociology to real world events. Nobody was required to read the e-mail. Even according to one of the complaining students, Robinson informed her that it was an informational piece and not a required assignment.

The fact remains that no one including Robinson has ever claimed the e-mail was discussed or used to "stimulate discussion" in class, even before objections were raised. With respect, you are not being honest about Robinson's motives in sending the e-mail. The fact that he claims it was "an informational piece and not a required assignment" further confirms that this was instead an angry outburst and expression of his own political views, not an attempt to "stimulate discussion" - the tone and content of his e-mail discouraged rather than inviting the expression of differing opinions about the subject matter.

Of course it was expected. This is what course distribution lists are for! Teachers send items from the world media with commentary through their course distribution lists all the time. No student of the modern university can seriously feign surprise at receiving such materials. This is why the attack on Robinson is so disingenuous. This is why Stand With Us dishonestly substitutes the term "class roster" for course distribution list: they know there is nothing untoward about what Robinson did. They disagree with his opinion.

As for tone, it is an accepted pedagogical style to be provocative. There is nothing unusual about a scholar making his opinion known in the classroom. There's nothing wrong with it either. Academic freedom protects the expression of opinions by students and teachers alike.